Saturday, May 24, 2014

Born Electric Guest Blogger: Meet Bill from The UK

Hi, my
name is Bill and I was born electric on 14 March 2014.

I've done 2,000 miles in
my i3 so far so I thought it was time to contribute first impressions via
Tom's blog (thanks Tom). As you can see from my photos, this i3 is definitely
not a city dweller, although in the south of England you're never that far from
a city to be honest. Driving country lanes so much makes it really tough to
keep clean though.

I came to the i3 via a curious
route, because I had really been looking for an electric motorbike. Sadly,
there are not many to choose from and none from the established mainstream
motorcycle producers. The more I looked into things the more I was convinced I
could live with the range limits inherent to EVs; my daily commute (25 mile
round trip) is very compatible with the range of most pure electric vehicles.
Coupled with the luxury of having other family vehicles available if needed, it
made it really easy to make the switch. But when I started looking to replace
my ICE car, nothing really excited me, until the i3 that is. The focus on
weight reduction resonated with what I look for in motorbikes; the development
of new car construction technologies was unusual in the EV market and designing
the car to be an EV from the ground up rather than converting an ICE model
seemed much more satisfactory. All this indicated to me that BMW have a level
of commitment to this EV which is very welcome as a consumer. Although the
price point of the i3 comes in for some criticism, next to the competition I
think it is amazing considering the development. And, in the UK at least, the
price benefits from a plug in grant which is not the case for electric
motorbikes.

Car specification and options assessment

This car was bought primarily for my daily
commute and circumstances meant that I decided early on to go for the pure
electric model. The REX is a great choice if you need the daily range or you
are buying one as your only family car, but that wasn't my situation. As I was
buying a BEV I initially specified the following options to help with range on
the odd occasion that I might want or need it.

As for the cosmetic options, I will
probably keep the car for some time so went for the Suite interior hoping that
the leather will wear well. I added turbine 428 wheels and LED headlights, and
finally added parking assist when I realized it was the only way to get front
parking sensors. The Pro navigation system and real time traffic info was a
free of charge upgrade. I chose Arravani Grey as my colour option.

Of the options I didn't chose I'd make the
following comments. I've had cars with sun roofs before and never used them. I
don't like how cruise control takes away my control of the car so the idea of
the driving assistance package did not appeal at all. My commute is virtually
traffic free down country lanes so it would not have much use anyway. I don't
need to make much use of my phone when on the move so enhanced bluetooth was an
option without much benefit. I was coming from a 20 year old Mazda which had no
remote central locking so I'm still enjoying the “thrill” of opening it without
using a key making comfort access seem like overkill. I don't need the car to
have the internet (I have a smart phone) and couldn't justify spending the
extra on the premium sound preparation when it cost more than I spent on my
home hi-fi speakers. I won't often take more than 1 passenger so the lack of
rear speakers is not a worry. On the specification front I would say that a lot
of the details about what these options actually do were only filled in after I
placed the order, and having owned it for a couple of months I'm still not sure
what the adaptive part of the headlight function refers too!

Having lived with the options I thought
scoring them might be of interest to potential buyers:

Winter pack –heated seats hardly affect range at all, even
on full chat – a must have for temperate climates 10/10

Auxiliary cabin preparation – not sure how
much this helps so difficult to score.

DC rapid charge preparation – time will
tell but a potent game changer in functionality terms so I wouldn't be without
it 10/10

Suite – love the mix of leather and wood so
10/10.

LED headlights are an expensive cosmetic
option which I think I could have done without. As is common on modern lights
they produces a blue halo around the edge of the beam which is off-putting for
me and other drivers and I quite regularly get flashed by cars heading in the
opposite direction even though I only have had dipped beam active. In the past
I've had motorbikes which produce a light with a blue halo and I've had cars in
front of me on a motorway brake hard and pull onto the hard shoulder because
they thought I was the police – not ideal! 2/10. If I did it again I would
probably drop LED lights in favor of the premium sound preparation.

Park Assistance front sensors are very
handy but the rear camera takes some getting used to using and trust. Park
assist parallel parking works very well although day to day I don't have much
call for it. 10/10 for how well it works but 5/10 in value terms as it is an
expensive option if like me it's just to add the front parking sensor
functionality.

Efficiency, Range and average speed

My daily commute is 25 miles and at the end
of two days commuting I typically have 25-30 miles of range left, but I haven't
tried a third day without charging yet. I commute in Eco Pro mode with the
speed limit set to 55 mph. When I can get away with it I just use heated seats
(climate control only being used for demisting). Bear in mind that morning
temperatures for the bulk of my mileage were rarely above 10 C here and most of
the time I've owned the car the evening temperatures have been similar. My 2
day cycle therefore normally includes one pre-warm while attached to the mains
and 3 pre-warms without mains. My longest trip between charges was 84 miles
with 4 miles remaining. The trip was made early morning at temperatures between
6 and 10 C, the last 15 miles was warmer, up to 14 C. This was in Eco Pro mode
with no climate control apart from some occasional demisting, along mostly
country lanes and A roads, rarely breaking the 55 mph limit I have set in Eco
Pro. The car tells me my average speed is 29.0 mph, average consumption is 4.2
miles/kWh and I've done just over 2000 miles. The car once told me I had 111
miles of range, but I didn't believe it!

Accessories

Public charging cable, cargo net, all
weather floor mats and additional 13 amp UK charger. These all work well and
like others I find the mats slippery in the wet but this doesn't bother me and
I like the way they look. The additional 13 amp UK charger was bought because I
wanted to mount the one that came with the car to the wall of my garage but
also wanted one to carry around in the car. I've swapped the main beam bulbs
for a cooler light as I didn't like the mix of white and yellow beams. I don't
have a level 2 charging station at home yet but have started the ball rolling.

Reliability

The app needs a bit of work, both in terms
of the functionality it offers and whether it reliably updates. I find the
algorithm behind delayed charging (which makes it difficult to predict whether
the car will take a charge when you've plugged it in but told it not to) hugely
frustrating and wish BMW had included a simple “charge controlled by
smartphone” option in the car's charge settings. If I want app control over
charging I have to fudge it by swapping from charge immediately to charge using
off peak time settings. I've had the car report interruptions to charging a
couple of times and I've had it fail to precondition a couple of times but
other than that it's been trouble free. A slight grumble with the climate
control is that it tends to noticeable oscillate from warm to cold air but I
will get used to that. I'm still confused by the preheating function which
appears to leave my car with less that 100 % in the battery when attached to
the mains. The attachment of the charging socket protective cap to the charging
flap leaves a lot to be desired and I still don't have a manual for the Pro-Nav
system.

Public charging

This is my first EV and reading stories
about charging points being out of service, ICE'd or otherwise not available has
left me nervous about committing to a public charge as the only means of
completing my journey. By scouting potential destinations I have confirmed the
need to do this as the information about public charging points can be hit and
miss. I have come across points listed as operational which were no more than
concrete standings and other points listed as public which are really intended
for the sole use of the company who have installed them. So when I set out for
Bristol which is a 120 mile round trip requiring a charge to complete I was
quite nervous, despite having visited and found that the listed charging points
were mostly available (most common problem I saw there was being ICED, about 25
% of bays). But the trip went without a glitch and I was pleased to see the BMW
app updated the availability in real time which is useful for all users. I
moved the car off the bay once fully charged so that another EV could use it.
When I returned to the car after the gig I'd been to, the EV bay I'd been in
was ICED!

In summary I hope you can tell from my
photos that I love the car. The only option I regret including is the LED
headlights and if I was buying again I would have swapped the LED lights for the
premium sound package. That's not to say that the standard sound is bad, on the
contrary it is very pleasing. I could go on as there are so many aspects to
this car to but overall so far I'm ahappy EV driver and a very happy i3 owner.

Hi there. Great information and some lovely pictures as well. Quick question regarding the LED lighting. Totally understand your comments relating to blue halo and such. However as I will be running my i3 on dark unlit roads, I am keen to get lighting that will penetrate and effective. So far reports about the non LED lighting system seem mixed (OK for city roads etc). Would you say that the LED lights on your i3 are stronger than normal halogens? Pick out detail well? Good in wet weather? Thanks.

Thanks for the kind words about the photos. On the headlights I saw the question and paid close attention to them last night. They do give very good illumination which is very even but perhaps not very penetrating. I am used to a very old car and I suspect an assessment of them is very subjective and strongly influenced by what you are used to. My wife is used to a more modern car and she says they light the way well and make main beam not very useful. I certainly agree that the main beams do not add that much or as much as I'm used to. As to how they compare to the standard lights (which I guess can be improved with different bulbs) I don't know but would be keen to find out. The blue halo effect is most noticeable when the beam hits a reflective surface (road signs). Hope this helps, Bill